Merhaba from the Culveys - Mar 2008
Hi everyone,
As I have some spare time this weekend I thought I’d take the opportunity to say hi for the first time this year! You may think it’s a bit odd that I have some spare time and maybe Lyra is getting soft....not the case...she’s in the UK, so it’s just me and the kids this weekend!!
So we left you last year about to fly off to Disneyland Paris for a few days before Christmas. Well, as you would expect it was an eventful trip! Travelling with us was Tan, and our friends Mel, Mentes, and their brood, Leah, and Kyan, so it was quite a team.
We flew over to London and stayed close to Heathrow to make it easy in the morning, Mel and Co. stayed with family in London. Next morning the fun began, we didn’t realise we were going from terminal 4 which left us short of time to get there and drop the hire car, plus Mel and co. got stuck on the M4 behind an accident! Needless to say we cut it way too fine! If it wasn’t for Lyra’s polite influencing we would of missed the flight! We eventually handed over our bags 25 minutes before take off! The flight was closed and if we hadn’t checked in online the night before we would of missed it!
Still we’d made it, and even a missing suitcase in Paris couldn’t dampen our excitement. We made it to the hotel (without incident!) and checked into our lodge. That afternoon we hung around the hotel by the huge log fire and chilled, it had been quite a journey, we all needed a drink!
Next day we were up bright and early, the sun was out, still freezing but we were off to the park!! As soon as we entered the park it was magical, Christmas to the extreme, all the kids (big and small) just loved it! We rode in boats, and trains, and watched the lion king show. After lunch it was time for the parade, the kids were just mesmerised! all their favourite characters there in front of them. Just brilliant. We even managed to get Tan to mind the kids while we went on Space Mountain roller-coaster, marvellous!
For the evening entertainment it was a Wild West Show and dinner. Again, what a show, Cowboy’s n Indians, lots of horse’s, even a few bison! The dinner was very meaty and basic but did the job, and the grand finale was Lyra getting pulled out of the crowd to be part of the final chase scene in a horse drawn carriage! What a day!
On the way home, Indi decided she really wanted to try ice skating, although surprised at Indi’s bravery. we thought it would be fun, so Ly, Tan, and Indi queued up for an hour, then Indi put one foot on the ice and burst into tears claiming it to be too slippy!! That’s our Indi!
After a great sleep, we did it all again, this time in Disney Studio’s, great parade’s, a great stunt show, scared the kids to death on a special effects ride, and again we got to go on a big kids ride the ‘Tower of Terror!’ All finished off with one last night time parade, and a great meal. The Disney castle was amazing at night.
For the trip home, we made sure we got to the airport early, not to make the same mistake twice! Only to find our flight had been cancelled! Thick fog in Heathrow! 10 hours later we got on a plane, too late to make it to Ansty Hall where we had planned to meet up with many of you to celebrate our 6th wedding anniversary back at the place we were married. We were absolutely gutted!
Never mind Christmas Eve took us back to Turkey for a quiet Christmas at home. We had a great day and the kids loved their presents from everyone. We had a lovely dinner and just relaxed, a wonderful balance after the madness of the last week!
New year was quiet too, Tan went into Izmir for a full on Turkish New Year with Gunay and family, while the rest of us went to Richard and Steph’s for a civilised dinner and games evening. We had a fun evening, the kids behaved brilliantly, and we discovered that I am the champion of Buzz music quiz on the PS2!
As we missed so many people at Christmas thanks to the weather, we took a flying visit back to the UK in Jan to catch up with friends and get down to Nanny and Grumpy’s to exchange Christmas pressies! All the Culvey kids were there so it was a noisy day, but they had a ball, and Kai discovered his love for Fab lollies!
Crazy Nana came over to Turkey in late Jan on a mission to get our boy up on his feet and walking! Kai was getting close to 22 months old and still refusing to take the plunge and get off his knees! Well she was successful after only a couple of days!! Once he did it there was no stopping him, and our lives changed for ever!!
Kai loves to whizz around now chasing Izzy, the cats, Indi, or anyone who’s around! It was a big relief all round, as we had feared his 2nd birthday might come first!!!
More milestones were attempted, like putting Kai in a bed, but we had to step back after a week of finding him on the floor!! We’ll try again soon.
Indi’s milestone has been to say goodbye to nappies once and for all, her night time nappy is now in the bin and our big girl is now nappy free, and very proud of it!!
It was a fun few weeks with Crazy Nana, we did the traditional beach trip to Cesme, including paddling, and we went to the Circus! It was a great show and we had front row tickets which was cool until they brought out the tigers!! The rope net they put up looked suspiciously flimsy but the drugs they had clearly pumped into them stopped anyone worrying for their lives, and only left you saddened for the tigers.
The kids had a ball though, as did Crazy Nana!
Just before Crazy Nana left, we had to have a little celebration for Princess India, as she met the big girl status of 4! The little party was actually pretty big, we had it at home and all her friends came, it was a day of complete madness with kids running everywhere, so much so we barely got a photo! If anybody else did can you please send them over!!
In line with her new big girl status, Indi took the big step of taking the bus to school! We say bus, it’s actually a very swish Mercedes mini van with blacked out windows!! We were all nervous, but Indi loves it, and going to school is even more fun now Ferhan the driver picks her up! Indi’s school experience has been really great lately, mainly due to a couple of new starters, Anna (French / Turkish) and Lenor (American / Turkish) have given India some close friends that she just loves and talks about endlessly.
Well that brings us pretty much up to date, except for one small thing, yes, yours truly said good bye to his Thirties this week!! Last weekend we were in the Uk and had a brilliant time catching up with you all, many thanks to everyone who travelled up to see us, special mention has to go to Jerome, Catherine and gang who we hadn’t seen in almost 4 years, but it was fun hanging out with you all!
The hardiest made it out later to an evening of fine curry and G&T’s with cucumber (a new favourite!), just what we needed after being starved of curry whilst in Turkey!!
Ok, that really is it! We are looking forward to spring, the weather is finally getting warmer...almost into the 20’s! This winter has been cold by Turkey’s standards so we are ready for the sun again!
We are also preparing for Les, Zoe, and Kasey to visit, closely followed by Nanny & Grumpy! And of course, the count down to the Wedding of the year has begun...the invites are sent, the venue is booked..... the nerves are kicking in, it will be August before we know it and Tan will be a married woman!! Unbelievable!
See you soon, or catch up online!
Dan, Ly, Indi, Kaibo, and Tan.
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